


no silent prayer for the faith-departed

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Incest, Marriage of Convenience, Mutually Unrequited, One Shot, Political Alliances, Political Expediency, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 07:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12054285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: Cesare retains his rights as firstborn, and readily agrees to the proposed marriage with Sancia d'Aragona.





	no silent prayer for the faith-departed

**Author's Note:**

> An anon prompted, "I began reading your very-long, very-detailed Borgias fic on Ao3, and in ch. 13 Lucrezia and Cesare have a brief conversation about "if Cesare had been Duke of Gandia from the beginning, he would've married Sancia." Could you write a little bit of that AU, from Sancia's perspective?"

Sancia did not love her husband. But she liked him well enough at first, this young and handsome duke she had married. The title meant little; she had as great a one of her own, Italian and not Spanish—these things came less from credit than the favour of powerful fathers. He might have been so much pampered nothing, or as carelessly cruel as the king.—Ferrante, affectionate as a father, had certainly not made a kind husband to his wife or lord to his subjects. Instead Borgia’s character suited her very well: charming at best, coldly vindictive at worst, intensely brilliant without exception. Sancia, a bastard herself with enough ambition for five, found him a satisfying husband indeed.

He satisfied her in bed as well, which came as a relief—one never knew with young men. She conceived within the year and was safely delivered of a healthy child. A girl, but Borgia named her Lucrezia and doted on her as much as his nephew, as did his sister. Indeed the two children might easily have been brother and sister; Sancia, fond of her daughter but preoccupied by many other matters, readily relegated her care to the elder Lucrezia.

She enjoyed Rome a great deal more than Naples. Her father’s predilections never bothered her much, but she thought them silly; even Rome’s cruelty suited her tastes better.

“There is a point to it,” she once told her husband. They did not confide in one another, exactly, but sometimes they talked of matters that concerned them both.

“Sometimes,” said Borgia. “Fear is always a blunt weapon. It must be used with care—the French learned that in Naples.”

Sancia smiled. “Did they?”

The French had been ousted and her brother avenged. Alone, she shed her tears for Alfonso, but triumph was meant to be shared and publicized. Alfonso, she thought, would have wanted that.

Her husband laughed.

If the French did not learn from that first Italian campaign, Borgia himself certainly did. Sancia, nurturing her widening influence, closely attended to every detail of his own initial campaign, against the faithless petty vicars of the Romagna. Everyone—Sancia included—believed him headed for Forlì, exacting vengeance on Caterina Sforza. Before any of them knew what quite had happened, however, the papal armies swerved away and seized Imola and then Pesaro without resistance. Borgia himself seemed to disappear and reappear at will; Sancia heard even whispers that he had been in Florence.

His sister, playing games with her suitors or her father or both, laughed when she heard.

“Of course Cesare triumphed,” she declared. “I never doubted it. Should I visit him in Pesaro, Father?”

The Pope patted her head. “We believe it too dangerous a journey just now. Perhaps later.”

Sancia knew better. Naturally she amused herself with her husband away, and more than once she’d seen Lucrezia wandering sleeplessly about at night. She’d fretted more over her brother than Sancia herself. But of course she did. Lovers and friends might come and go; the ties of family could never be broken. Siblings shared loyalties, interests, very often character—Sancia, loving sister to an unlovable brother, considered this the proper order of affairs. For their part Lucrezia and Borgia loved each other with companionable, passionate loyalty, more than Sancia felt towards much of anyone, though she liked them both. It was natural that Lucrezia would dread and rejoice at news out of the Romagna more than Sancia could.

The Pope received his son more warmly than ever before, which awakened more delight than anything else. Sancia remembered hearing that Alfonso had been tortured to death and decided she would very much like to see the Romagna in her husband’s grip. And after all, it would be a fine thing to be Duchess of Romagna—finer than Squillace or Gandía. Certainly she could do more for Naples.

She did not think of her lovers then. She did not even think of her husband as a cuckold. They had pleased each other upon their marriage, but no more, and she preferred more variety than he did. Their marriage had never been about faithful love, after all, but convenience. Sancia made no attempt to hide her affairs; she knew he would hear of them, and never thought he would care in the slightest.

Perhaps he would not have, had her principal paramour not been his own brother. Afterwards, though, Sancia suspected he would have taken it as a humiliation in any case.

It was almost amusing, for he never spoke of it, except in the most casual of ways. She might have wondered if he knew, but for Lucrezia’s marked coldness. At the time, Sancia found her constant small jabs rather more disagreeable than anything the duke said or did, even his now perpetual absence from her bed.

“Sister, have you heard Lucrezia?” the doting aunt would say delightedly, holding Sancia’s daughter.

The baby gave a toothy grin. “Ti-a!”

“How clever,” said Sancia.

“You  _are_ clever, aren’t you?” Lucrezia said to her namesake, ignoring Sancia altogether. She swung her up in the air and laughed with her, babbling nonsense at the baby until Sancia took her leave.

For all his silence, Sancia felt increasingly uncomfortable around her husband. He scarcely ever said anything but the merest commonplaces to her, though her spies reported that he had no mistress at the moment. When not occupied with the Pope or matters of state, he spent his time with his sister and the children. In another man, it might have been endearing. In Borgia, it seemed pointed neglect. Yet he did not often trouble himself with petty slights, except as a prelude to something greater.

As indeed it was. The Pope chose to take his son’s Romagnol triumphs as a sign from God. His long, tedious fast ended and preparations for the children’s baptisms began. Sancia welcomed the occasion; she had wondered at the delay, one thing for a stablehand’s bastard, another for the legitimate heiress to a Spanish duke and kin to the Spanish king. Yet she feared—she knew not what.

Borgia and Lucrezia stood as godparents to one another’s children. Of course they did. And afterwards, he stabbed Juan and threw the body in the river.

She didn’t see it. He didn’t talk to her about it. But when Juan’s body turned up, she guessed; and when Borgia and Lucrezia shouted at their father over the corpse, she knew.

It was a relief when her cousin Alfonso arrived. He’d been a shy nervous boy, as ill-prepared for marriage to a Borgia as she could imagine, but he was  _hers_. Besides, another Neapolitan marriage could only be for the best. The alliance remained strong. They could preserve Naples’ interests, her husband had his revenge and would overcome his fit of pique, surely enough for a son; all would return to what it had been before.

But her husband looked at Alfonso with a flash of shock, instantly banished, and then loathing. Sancia’s eyes narrowed. She would do what was necessary for her family, for Alfonso and Naples, and damn Cesare Borgia.


End file.
